Patrice Karst, THE INVISIBLE STRING
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[1:21]I'm so honored to be interviewing the best-selling author of The Invisible String Petrice
[1:26]Carced. Her books have sold over half a million copies and have touched the lives of so many
[1:32]people. She's also written The Invisible Leash, a story celebrating love after the loss of a pet,
[1:38]The Invisible String Workbook with Dana Weiss, Creative Activities to Comfort, Calm and Connect,
[1:43]and The Invisible Web in Spring of 2020. Her previous books include God Made Easy,
[1:49]The Smile That Went Around the World, and The Single Mother's Survival Guide. She currently lives
[1:54]in Los Angeles, California. Welcome, Patrice. Thanks for coming on mom's and have time to read books.
[1:58]Thank you so much for having me, Zippy. So I'm so excited to talk to you because I read The
[2:03]Invisible String to my kids all the time. I have four kids and two of them are five and six,
[2:08]and this is just one of our favorites, so I'm really excited to get to talk to you. Well,
[2:13]I'm so happy to hear that. So I was interested, The Invisible String, and I know you have
[2:17]new books which have been released, but I just want to talk about your iconic work first, which
[2:21]has sold more than half a million copies and is used worldwide for so many reasons by so many
[2:27]institutions. Tell me a little about how originally you wrote that book and then how it became
[2:33]such a nationwide worldwide tool for healing and all sorts of other things.
[2:39]It's my favorite story to tell. No one could have been more surprised than I have been
[2:46]as to the trajectory and just the phenomena that happened with The Invisible String. I wrote it
[2:53]20 years ago, over 20 years ago, originally because I was a single working mom and my son was
[3:01]four or five at the time and he would be really sad when I would take him to preschool,
[3:07]like he had major separation anxiety and he would cry when I, as I was leaving and then I would
[3:13]cry and we were both a hot mess. So nothing seemed to work, you know, me just saying I'll be back,
[3:20]you know, and have fun and you know none of that worked, but one day I just told him what was
[3:28]really just obvious to me, but I told him how we would be connected all day long by this invisible
[3:35]string and if he missed me all he needed to do was tug on it and I would feel it and if I missed
[3:40]him I would tug on my end of the string and he would feel it, but that we were connected all day
[3:45]until we saw each other again at night and his eyes just got, you know, as big as saucers,
[3:51]he literally, that was it. It was like, voila, separation anxiety handled. He said, do we really
[3:58]have an invisible string mama and yes we do and that was, that was it from then on every morning
[4:05]when I would bring him, he'd say, mom, I'll be tugging on the string or when I picked them up,
[4:08]he'd say, mommy, did you, did you feel be tugging on the string and then all his friends
[4:12]asked to hear the story and I told them all and that was when I saw their reaction and I realized
[4:21]that I had something very special here because what is such a love is such an abstract idea
[4:30]but I had somehow in the telling of this story created a very tangible explanation of what love
[4:37]really is. It's an invisible string and I knew that there was something very, very magical
[4:43]that deserved to be told to a wider audience more than just my son and his friends at his preschool.
[4:49]So I wrote it as a story and went to a very small publisher here in Los Angeles who had never done
[4:57]a children's book before. He did mostly spiritual metaphysical new age, you know, books
[5:03]and but he was tiny tiny publisher and I approached him and he loved the concept, he loved the
[5:09]story and said yeah I'll publish it so he published it originally came out in 2000 and I thought
[5:17]my work was done, you know, I was glad the book was out there, he had very very little distribution,
[5:23]it was not in the Barnes & Noble or Borders of the World, it was, you know, Amazon and some new age
[5:29]churches around the country and you know, it sold very mediocre, it was, you know, it plugged
[5:37]along, it was doing okay, I got beautiful letters from moms and dads and teachers and not lots
[5:44]of letters but the ones I did get were profoundly grateful for the book and I was on to other things,
[5:50]I was working on other projects and really didn't put any energy into it and then
[5:57]how the phenomenon began was that right around the time of Sandy Hook, the Sandy Hook massacre and
[6:07]the reason I remember that is I don't remember whether it was an email or if it was an Amazon
[6:13]review but a Sandy Hook parent, not a parent of one of the children that died but one of the
[6:18]surviving children in the classroom wrote to me or wrote the review and said that the book had
[6:24]been instrumental in helping his daughter handle her grief and realized that she was always connected
[6:29]to all of her friends that had perished and, you know, and made her not feel so scared because,
[6:36]you know, now she knew she was always connected to mom and dad and I remember that being the timing
[6:43]of when I started to notice, I have Google alerts, you know, my computer every author does whether
[6:49]they admit it or not. So, you know, let's us know when someone out there in the internet has said
[6:56]something nice about us or about our book and all of a sudden it was ping, ping, ping, ping, pinging
[7:02]around and it was as if like the hundredth monkey effect or something like suddenly my book
[7:09]and I don't know how, I don't know, it was like a word of mouth phenomenon but it was suddenly
[7:14]being used by the military for deployed parents. It was being used by the prison system for incarcerated,
[7:22]loved ones, it was being used by adoption and foster organizations. It was being used by psych school
[7:29]psychologists, therapy, marriage counselors, divorce attorneys, hospices, hospitals, just it just
[7:37]suddenly was the go-to book for bereavement organizations for any kind of loss for separation anxiety
[7:46]for any time a child needed to know that they were still connected and then the phenomena
[7:53]happened that adults started buying it for each other. So spouses would buy it for each other,
[7:59]adult children for their adult parents and vice versa. It became like a, you know, not only a baby
[8:05]shower gift but wedding anniversaries and graduations for college parents were giving it to their
[8:11]kids that were going, or going, high school graduation the kids were going off to college or
[8:16]it just took off. Zibi, I don't know, it just went into the stratosphere.
[8:22]It's like a viral, a book going viral like an article would, you know, it's amazing.
[8:27]Really and truly because, you know, so many authors spend lots of money on getting publicists
[8:35]and spending money on advertising and this was one of those rare publishing miracles where
[8:43]no money was spent. It was word of mouth. That must have felt great. It was, I mean, it's still,
[8:50]I still pinch myself. You know, I don't know what happened but I just like to think that when,
[8:58]you know, the message is ready, the readers will come, right? It's like when it was just meant to
[9:05]be. That's the only thing I can say. It was meant to be. And before you wrote it down as a story,
[9:11]had you done any sort of writing or had you ever wanted to write books? Like, what type of
[9:16]you are a single working mom? What type of work were you doing at the time? Yes, I had written,
[9:21]I'd always written for love. I, you know, I'd been writing journals since I was 12 years old
[9:27]and, you know, poetry and, you know, on cocktail napkins and, you know, you name it. And I actually
[9:34]had when my son was, you know, very, very young. I had written a book called God Made Easy. I woke
[9:41]up from a dream and saw the title. Literally just saw the title and this little voice said,
[9:46]this should be a book, you know, go get a notebook and start writing. And I, I wrote it and it was
[9:51]a little magical spiritual book and it got published. And then I wrote another book called The Single
[9:58]Mother's Survival Guide.
[10:00]and it got published.
[10:01]So yeah, I had written some adult books,
[10:03]but never in a million years.
[10:05]Writing a children's book was the furthest thing
[10:08]from my radar.
[10:11]And yet that's really what I've known for now
[10:13]is my kid's books.
[10:15]It's funny because I had one of my kids
[10:17]had really bad separation anxiety.
[10:19]And I think as a parent, there's almost nothing
[10:22]you won't try to make your kids feel better.
[10:25]I remember I tried stuffing a lunch box full of little notes
[10:28]that she could take out and read when she was at school.
[10:31]I invented this like invisible cloak of bravery she would wear.
[10:34]And you just try.
[10:35]And you never know what's going to stick
[10:38]and what isn't going to stick.
[10:40]And you seem to have found the thing that sticks for everybody,
[10:43]which is such a gift really to the world.
[10:46]It's amazing.
[10:47]Thank you.
[10:48]Thank you.
[10:49]Yeah, I'm blown away and very very grateful.
[10:53]And it's funny you bring up the invisible cloak
[10:55]because that's actually, I've been making
[10:57]a little list of other invisible books
[10:59]besides the ones that have already written
[11:00]that I want to write and the invisible cloak is one of them.
[11:03]No way.
[11:04]Oh my gosh.
[11:05]There you go.
[11:05]Well, we had a whole thing because in her school
[11:07]for a little while, there was a mirror, not a mirror, a window.
[11:11]This is what happens when I don't sleep.
[11:12]By the way, I can't remember words.
[11:14]Anyway, a window and she would walk up the steps
[11:17]inside the school and I would be outside the school
[11:19]and we could wave and she would do this little motion
[11:22]of tying it around.
[11:23]And I would do the tying motion back.
[11:24]And then she would go up and I would walk away.
[11:28]Anyway, so put that in the book somewhere, that little stuff.
[11:30]Stop, I fell.
[11:31]I didn't even put it.
[11:32]No, okay, great.
[11:34]Did you get her daughter?
[11:35]Yeah, exactly.
[11:36]Wow, well, that's really nice.
[11:37]So how did it feel to you as this was taking off
[11:40]and you were going about your day to day life
[11:42]with your son and everything and you watched the success
[11:45]and the book take off, did you start doing a ton of appearances
[11:49]like were you along for the ride?
[11:51]It sounds like you just sat back and watched.
[11:53]I really did just kind of sit back and watch.
[11:55]And just, I started to get so many emails all the time
[12:02]from caregivers and children and grandparents.
[12:06]I mean, it became, it's very humbling.
[12:09]It's a very humbling experience.
[12:11]And because it's the number one book for death and dying
[12:15]for children, a lot of the letters that I would get
[12:18]were profoundly painful letters.
[12:22]Ultimately beautiful because the book could help the family
[12:25]but lots of parents writing to me that had lost children
[12:28]and the book had helped the siblings.
[12:30]And I mean, I can't even, there was one story.
[12:34]I'll never forget this one where they wrote to me
[12:36]and told me that, oh, I don't want to start crying,
[12:38]but their 17-year-old had passed away
[12:41]and they put the invisible string in the casket with them.
[12:46]Yeah, I know, I shouldn't have even brought it up.
[12:48]But my point is, a lot of the letters
[12:51]I get are very lighthearted.
[12:53]I don't want to say that they're all very heavy
[12:55]because a lot of them are very lighthearted, very sweet.
[12:58]Like one mom wrote that when her son,
[13:01]when he drove off to go to college,
[13:03]she was crying and she came back in
[13:06]and went to turn on her computer
[13:08]and as she lifted up the lid,
[13:10]he had left a piece of string,
[13:12]a little tiny piece of string with a little note
[13:16]saying, don't forget mom.
[13:17]And I get beautiful, beautiful letters.
[13:21]And ironically, I struggle with feelings of loneliness.
[13:28]I had a rough childhood and they say that you write
[13:32]or you teach that which you most need yourself.
[13:36]And it's really true because I get sad a lot.
[13:40]And that's when I just remember my own book.
[13:44]And that, yeah, there really is an invisible string.
[13:47]It's real.
[13:48]And it's been a wondrous experience.
[13:51]It truly has.
[13:52]Can you say any more about your childhood?
[13:54]Now I'm interested in knowing what happened,
[13:56]but you don't have to if you don't want to share it.
[13:58]No, no, no, no.
[13:59]So it's fine.
[14:00]I was born in England and I had,
[14:02]my parents were both mentally ill
[14:04]and I had a mentally ill brother.
[14:06]So I was sort of like the normal one in a very, very odd family.
[14:12]And there was a lot of emotional abuse.
[14:15]God bless them.
[14:16]My parents are both deceased now,
[14:18]but they did the best they could,
[14:20]but they were both Holocaust.
[14:22]Not survivors, first generation,
[14:24]but their parents had been.
[14:25]And my father had found his father,
[14:28]had committed suicide and my father found him.
[14:30]And just a lot of dark,
[14:31]my father saw his school being bombed in World War II.
[14:35]So lots of heavy, heavy stuff.
[14:39]And they did the best they could,
[14:41]but there was a lot of painful stuff.
[14:43]And so I grew up feeling very lonely
[14:46]when I would go to my friend's houses
[14:49]and see normal families, you know,
[14:51]and they'd say hi, Patty, how are you, you know?
[14:54]And very happy, Jolly.
[14:57]There wasn't a lot of joy in my upbringing.
[15:00]So it's just sort of ironic
[15:02]that I would become this best-selling children's author
[15:06]with a book about love
[15:07]because it certainly wasn't modeled to me.
[15:10]You know, love was something that I learned all by myself.
[15:14]And so I'm pretty proud of myself for that,
[15:17]that I was somehow able to take, you know,
[15:21]that pain and still manage to bring so much joy
[15:25]to the world, as you said.
[15:27]And, you know, I don't take that lightly at all.
[15:31]It's a miracle.
[15:33]Wow.
[15:33]How did you bring yourself out of the depths of that,
[15:37]you know, the worst moments for you?
[15:39]How did you get through it?
[15:41]Like, how did you go from, did you leave home
[15:44]and go to college?
[15:45]And then you found other families?
[15:46]Like, when was there a turning?
[15:48]I left home at 16th, out of there, you know,
[15:50]when I got an apartment with a friend
[15:52]and never really looked back.
[15:54]I think I moved back when I was 21 for a few months
[15:56]when I was totally out of money at one point.
[15:59]But my spiritual path, I've been on a spiritual path
[16:03]ever since being a little girl in England.
[16:05]I think because of the fact that I was not raised
[16:08]in a family where all my needs were being met,
[16:11]I had to source out another parent.
[16:15]So my parent was God.
[16:17]My parent was spirit, was the source of all things.
[16:20]And I, you know, used to look up at the stars at night
[16:24]and talk to the stars and talk to God.
[16:27]And so God really became my surrogate parent.
[16:31]And my love of God, my, when I say God,
[16:35]I don't mean a, you know, a Christian
[16:37]or any particular religion's God.
[16:40]I, you know, when I wrote God made easy,
[16:43]I say, God is, you know,
[16:44]fill in the blank with any name you want,
[16:46]the source, the force, all mighty, infinite intelligence,
[16:49]you know, something bigger than me, big dad,
[16:51]you know, divine mother, heavenly father,
[16:54]whatever name you want to call him or it.
[16:58]So I would say my spiritual path,
[16:59]and I had a really big sense of humor.
[17:02]And I think that humor, like I was, you know,
[17:05]class clown in high school.
[17:06]And I did stand up comedy for a while in San Francisco
[17:09]when I lived there, you know,
[17:11]just open mics and stuff like that.
[17:12]But I've always been a funny girl.
[17:14]And so I would say, yeah, humor and faith in,
[17:18]in a higher power is what helped me.
[17:21]And compassion, compassion for, for my parents,
[17:24]because they really did the best they could
[17:26]with what they had.
[17:27]Wow, such a role model attitude towards that really is,
[17:31]I mean, it's inspiring the way you were able
[17:34]to find a way to deal with all that, honestly.
[17:36]And now you have the invisible leash,
[17:39]a story celebrating love after the loss
[17:42]of a pet with an invisible string,
[17:44]workbook, creative activities to comfort calm and connect.
[17:48]And then the invisible web is coming out.
[17:51]Yes.
[17:51]So you have just so much in the hopper here.
[17:54]Tell me, and I know you have a dog,
[17:56]because I know our scheduling this interview
[17:58]is about when the dogs had dog hair,
[18:00]something which I thought was awesome.
[18:02]Yeah, exactly.
[18:03]So, you know, a lot of people have used the invisible string
[18:07]for a death of a pet.
[18:09]But I got a lot of letters from parents asking
[18:13]if I could please write a book specifically
[18:15]for the loss of an animal.
[18:17]And so I did, and luckily Little Brown, my fabulous publisher,
[18:21]loved it and bought it.
[18:23]And interestingly, sadly, and ironically,
[18:28]when I was finishing the book, my, my doggy,
[18:32]my 14 year old wiener dog, Coco, died.
[18:35]No.
[18:36]I had to put her down.
[18:37]She was, you know, old and very sick.
[18:39]And let me tell you, I read my own book over and over
[18:43]and over to bring me comfort.
[18:44]And Little Brown was so fabulous.
[18:47]They let me put a picture of Coco in the book
[18:50]and a dedication to her.
[18:51]So she lives on.
[18:52]And now I have a new wiener dog named Luna.
[18:55]And Luna is 10 months old now.
[18:57]And the new love of my life.
[18:59]But I can honestly say, without a doubt,
[19:04]the invisible leash heals because that book helped me
[19:08]grieve the loss of Coco, big time,
[19:10]to just realize that we have an invisible leash
[19:13]to our beloved animals in the beyond.
[19:15]And the same concept is the string.
[19:18]They can feel us.
[19:19]They're with us.
[19:20]We can hug and tug along the leash and they feel it.
[19:24]And yeah, so I'm really excited about that book.
[19:27]And then the invisible string workbook.
[19:30]That was an amazing story because I got a fan letter
[19:33]from an email from a therapist, an art therapist
[19:36]at the time, Dana Weiss.
[19:38]And she had told me that she had,
[19:39]she did a lot of work with unwed, young teen mothers
[19:44]that came from very, very, very hard backgrounds.
[19:49]Lots of drugs and some of them been incarcerated.
[19:53]And they hadn't bonded with their own children.
[19:56]And she was using the invisible string
[19:58]to help them bond.
[20:00]with their kids. And she wrote me a letter one day and said that one of the teen moms
[20:05]had had a gift for me. She had drawn this beautiful card for me thanking me for the invisible
[20:10]string. And Dana wanted to mail it to me. And I said, well, why don't we have lunch?
[20:15]Your local, she was from Los Angeles too. So we had lunch. And during that lunch, she
[20:20]started telling me about all these different activities that her and a lot of other therapists
[20:26]psychologists and people were using to take the message of the invisible string to even,
[20:32]you know, bigger depths. And I said, well, why don't we do a workbook together? So we signed our deal
[20:38]on a paper napkin right there in the restaurant. We decided we would split it 50-50. And she went to
[20:44]work creating this, you know, amazing workbook that's just full of all kinds of creative,
[20:51]amazing activities and games. And it's fabulous. It's such, it's such a beautiful book.
[20:59]And by the time we sold it, because for years I tried to sell the book, but nobody wanted it
[21:05]since they didn't have the invisible string, because the hardback was already published.
[21:10]And when little brown, when I, because I had the paperback rights and when they decided to put out
[21:14]the paperback, and I told them about the workbook, they jumped on it. And by that time, Dana,
[21:19]Weiss had become Dr. Dana Weiss with a PhD in art therapy. So we're partners on the book and
[21:25]it's incredible. And then the invisible web comes out in April. And that's the book that's about
[21:31]our universal connection. That's when, you know, all the children of the world realize that,
[21:37]you know, we're all connected by invisible strings. And we realize we're really living in
[21:42]a web, an invisible web of love. I call it the real worldwide web, you know, the real line
[21:49]and so that's exciting. That's coming out in April. And then the last one in the series so far,
[21:56]please God, there will be more. There's always room for more love and books about love and
[22:01]invisible books. But I have a board book for babies coming out in December, called You Are Never
[22:07]Alone. And it's an invisible string lullaby. It's really just like a song about love.
[22:15]and, and if I can just share real quick, the story of that is a great story because
[22:21]last year, I don't remember exactly when it was, but to our horror, little brown, my publisher,
[22:28]and I, a certain amount of books had gone out in the world. And the printer had made an error.
[22:34]It was one of those nightmares where the last page in the book was not in the book.
[22:40]The most important page in the whole book of the invisible string, which says, you know,
[22:44]no one is ever alone. The last page hadn't gone or so we were able to track down almost every single
[22:51]book and fixed it. But I was so mortified and so horrified. And my editor, Andrea Spooner,
[22:58]who's incredible woman, she said, Patrice, I think I have an idea of how we can turn this lemon
[23:04]into lemonade. She said, how about you write a book called You Are Never Alone. And so I did.
[23:12]And that became the board book that's coming out in December.
[23:15]I thought maybe it was going to be called the missing page.
[23:19]No, but actually, you know, making me think that when we get, when I get to the point of the book
[23:23]where I start writing, little thing, maybe I'll tell that story of how that book came to be.
[23:28]You should. That would be a great story. You could also do one where people write their own last page.
[23:33]Oh, oh, you know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What a great idea.
[23:40]You just call me when you need ideas and I'll, you know, I just kidding. Wow,
[23:46]will you have a lot in the hopper? This is so exciting. I mean, amazing. Do you have any aspirations
[23:52]off the page in any way? Like, do you want to get out there and be a spokesperson or are you happy
[23:58]like your day-to-day life now or I'm just curious? I, you know, I would like to. I love doing public
[24:06]speaking and I love doing school visits and things. My great hope now. And I just got new agent
[24:14]William Morris in Debber. So I'm super, super excited. And I have the dramatic rights to the
[24:22]industry. Next piece is I would love a feature film or a children's animated series television show.
[24:32]But I think the invisible string is destined to hit the big screen or the little screen.
[24:37]But I think that that's the next, the next step would be to have it reach an even wider audience
[24:44]in the way that film and television can. So I'm excited to see what happens. I think 2020
[24:51]should be a pretty thrilling year. And I've written other kids books, which hopefully we will
[24:56]sell. And they're not so much invisible books. But, you know, all of my work really has the same
[25:02]theme. It's love, it's connection, it's oneness. It's, you know, that we're all in this thing
[25:08]together. And so all of my books, even though they're all quite different, they all have that
[25:15]flowing through. Wow. Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[25:20]Write the book because so many people will tell me, I've got a book idea, I've got a book idea,
[25:28]I've got a book idea inside of me. And I'm like, well, why don't you get it outside if you
[25:34]and write it, you know, write it. So I would say write your story. And then, you know,
[25:40]there's so many cliche, you know, things that authors say to other authors. But in this case,
[25:46]it's not a cliche. It's really true that, you know, I believe that our job as writers is to tell our
[25:54]story and really kind of let go of the results. You know, I see a lot of, a lot of writers get,
[26:02]you know, go through a lot of pain because maybe their book, you know, isn't selling that well.
[26:08]You know, granted, it's easy for me to say I have a best selling book. But even when my book was,
[26:13]you know, limping along years ago, I still felt really proud that I had told my story and that it
[26:19]was out there for whoever was destined to read it. And I think we need to let go of the results,
[26:27]you know, tell your story. And then you got to sort of surrender it to the book gods
[26:32]because every book has its own destiny. And it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day,
[26:39]obviously financially, it matters. And career wise, it's thrilling to have a best selling book.
[26:45]But whether one person is moved by your book or a million people are moved by your book,
[26:52]even just one person being moved by what your story is matters. It matters because that one person
[27:00]could go on to change the lives of, you know, 20 more people who would change the lives of 20 more
[27:06]people just by having read your story. So we never know when we put our artistic or whatever it is,
[27:13]you know, you with your podcast, you know, you won't necessarily know the person that hears
[27:19]your podcast and it inspires them to do X, Y, and Z or to hug their kid in a, you know,
[27:25]bigger way than they would have if they hadn't heard your podcast. You may never know
[27:30]just the power of what it is you're doing, but you're doing it. And I can tell, you know,
[27:35]I can, this is a labor of love for you. And it matters. It matters. So that's what I would say is
[27:41]if you have a story inside of you, you have a message, you have a teaching inside of you,
[27:46]get it outside of you and put it out in the world. Wow. Thank you so much for coming on this podcast
[27:53]and for those particularly inspiring really nice words to hear from me. And I hope to meet you in
[28:02]person at some point when I would love to. I would love to especially when you're out in the
[28:07]Palisades. Yes. Yes. I would love it. I'll be there. Thank you so much. Thank you, Zibi. Take care.
[28:14]You too. Bye bye. You've been listening to moms don't have time to read books with Zibi Owens.
[28:19]Please make sure to sign up for my newsletter at zibiowans.com to get more updates about episodes
[28:24]like these and also lots of live events. Thanks again to Kai Yuichi for sponsoring this episode of
[28:29]moms don't have time to read books. You can follow me on Instagram at moms don't have time to read
[28:35]books. Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound for the Sound Editing. And thank you to
[28:40]Morning Moon Productions for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music. Thanks for listening.
[28:44]you could always email me at zibi at zibiowans.com.